The Peoples Era
V. The Peoples Era
In 1989 Leon Lederman retired and John Peoples was appointed Director of Fermilab. In order to improve the performance of the Main Ring accelerator a new initiative, the Main Injector, was launched in 1989. It began operating in 1999, providing the Tevatron with higher luminosity, increasing the number of particle collisions, and enhancing our ability to "see" them.
The science education programs, begun in the 1980's under the sponsorship of the Friends of Fermilab and the leadership of Lederman, were provided a permanent home when the Laboratory held a groundbreaking in 1989 for the Lederman Science Education Center
Dedicated in 1992, the Center serves as a base for our expanding horizons, reaching out to bring science to the students and teachers of the nation.
As the Doubler and ACP were examples of physicists inventing their research tools to extend their frontiers, so the World Wide Web was invented in the early 1990's by international collaborations of high energy physicists to improve communications among themselves and their many essential partners.
From 1992 to 1993 the twenty-year old 200 MeV Linac received a boost of energy. This phase of initiatives to improve Fermilab's facilities for the 1990's brought the older Linac up to 400 MeV and increased the intensity of the beam in the Booster, and in turn that of the Tevatron. This improvement also enhances our collider luminosity, allowing us to make more collisions and discover rare events.
On March 22, 1993, a groundbreaking for the Main Injector, the centerpiece of these upgrades, was held. These improvements enabled Fermilab to launch a broader experimental research program with stronger capabilities. Adjacent to the Tevatron on our western border, the Main Injector will boost Fermilab's position for frontier research in the twenty-first century.
During the 1990s the top quark search intensified and in 1994 evidence of its sighting was reported. By 1995 both teams of detector collaborations, CDF and DZero, closed in on their quarry and announced the top's discovery. The two discovering expeditions consisted of almost one thousand physicists from around the globe. An incredible amount of data had been mined in the search for these precious nuggets. Fermilab was the only place on earth where this search could occur.
NEXT: VI. Conclusion